The Sabres have played their way past the talk of magic numbers and out-of-town help. Now, the math is simple: Win, and they\u2019re in.<\/p>\n
Buffalo visits the Ottawa Senators on Thursday at 7 p.m. at Canadian Tire Centre, where a win of any kind would secure the Sabres\u2019 first Stanley Cup Playoffs berth since 2011.<\/p>\n
This dominant run began nearly four months ago, and in last place in the Eastern Conference. Buffalo has gone 35-7-4 since Dec. 9, including two straight wins after last week\u2019s 0-1-2 rough patch, to reach 100 points on the season. As a result, the Sabres are gearing up for late-April hockey, while division rivals like the Senators are just clawing to stay in the wild card race.<\/p>\n
The Sabres have won both matchups this season against the Senators, who have allowed 14 goals during a three-game winless streak. Those details, plus Buffalo\u2019s stellar road record, mean Thursday could go down as a memorable night in franchise lore.<\/p>\n
Here are the details before puck drop.<\/p>\n
Note: Buffalo would also clinch Thursday with an OT\/SO loss, a PHI win over DET and a CAR win over CBJ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sabres have played their way past the talk of magic numbers and out-of-town help. Now, the math…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5104],"tags":[5,4,72,25,5157,73],"class_list":{"0":"post-536573","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ottawa-senators","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-ottawa","11":"tag-ottawa-senators","12":"tag-ottawasenators","13":"tag-senators"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116335300836997800","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}